Good News! Writing Is Meant to Be Difficult

You haven’t got writer’s block, you’ve got writer’s comfort

“Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.” ― William K. Zinsser

I always preach about discomfort, it’s a sort of personal mantra. I talk and write about discomfort being the instigator of growth and how embracing its opposite, comfort, takes everything away from you.

I believe this wholeheartedly but until now I’ve only applied it to non-creative endeavours, like difficult work meetings, taking cold showers, or lifting heavy in the gym.

Where my mental disconnect lives is that I’ve failed to apply the same principle to creativity, especially writing.

Active Procrastination

What does the word “creativity” conjure up for you when you first hear it? What are the images that pop into your head?

Mine is of an artist, painting on giant canvases in a studio flooded with sunlight, sleeves rolled up, deep in flow, producing masterpieces and generally having a whale of a time.

That isn’t creativity. It’s fantasy.

Creativity isn’t admiring a finished product, it’s not basking in the glory of your works, it’s not even genius playing out whilst people stare in awe.

Rather, creativity is a dirty, confusing fight behind closed doors to extract what’s inside of us out, with a chosen medium. It’s an individual, lonely fight we undertake when we create anything.

Recently, I’ve been suffering from writer’s block. Each time I sat down to write, the words wouldn’t come to me. And each time I felt that frustration, I gave up on writing and pursued a different creative endeavour, such as making a vlog or playing guitar.

This is a psychological loophole I’ve fashioned for myself to escape discomfort.

We all do it. It’s what I call active-procrastination.

I’m not being lazy, I’m just being creative somewhere else, right?

Wrong. Playing guitar and making videos might be creative, but it’s avoiding the task at hand, it’s avoiding the looming need to get uncomfortable.

It’s hard to admit the things you love can also be challenging, or they can occasionally feel like a drag. I always expect writing to come easily because I love it. So when I struggle with words, I struggle with who I am.

I tell myself stories such as “This isn’t meant to happen,” or “I’m clearly not talented enough,” or “I’m doing it wrong”.

You’re Meant to Be Uncomfortable

Here’s the good news; creativity is meant to be uncomfortable. It’s meant to be hard. It’s meant to be a gut-wrenching exercise in extraction. Thinking otherwise is foolish.

Besides, if you’re not finding your creative endeavours challenging, are they really creative?

I fooled myself for the longest time that creativity should come easy because I didn’t want to admit what I’ve chosen to do with my time might not always be enjoyable.

Sure, there are exceptional stories of musicians writing hit songs in 20 minute frenzies, or novelists writing entire books in a continuous three-week blurs (I’m looking at you Jack Kerouac), but mostly, even the greatest artists are uncomfortable most of the time. It’s where they live.

Hemingway told the press he rewrote the ending to his book Farewell to Arms 39 times before he was happy with it, but later investigation after his death found a whopping 47 different versions.

We have to live outside our comfort zone not just in life, but in creativity also.

Art isn’t just a case of chanting “om” and tuning into the creative power of the universe, it’s an endless battle in the trenches against resistance, apathy and the never-ending urge to quit.

I take heed of Jack London’s words, when he said:

“You can’t wait for inspiration; you have to go after it with a club.”

Somewhere within us all is gold, and we need to pan for it daily, at the keyboard, at the easel, through the pen.

And even when we’re done, even when the creativity is over, you might not like what stares back at you. You’ve revealed too much, you’ve become too vulnerable, you think it’s pretentious or worse, childish.

The discomfort never ends!

Author James Altucher said if you don’t feel hesitant to publish something, is it really worth publishing anyway?

I think about those words often when I write vulnerable things or worry my work isn’t up to scratch.

Struggle Comes as Standard

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” — Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades

The universe is smarter than just dropping things in our lap. It doesn’t give us anything we care about without a struggle, else we wouldn’t care about it.

This small epiphany has helped me realise the struggle is good, the struggle is where the gold can be found, it’s where we need to pan.

My writer’s block began to lift when I realised it’s meant to be hard. Discomfort doesn’t mean I’m doing it wrong, it means I’m doing it right.

Writing is digging to freedom with a fountain pen, but that’s what we’ve all signed up to, so get in the trenches and write. I’m there with you. Everyone is, Hemingway, Altucher, even Kerouac.

There’s an army of fountain pens, digging for victory every time you sit down to write. We’re all there, together, uncomfortable, looking for gold, just like it’s meant to be.